Northern Sibling

For the record, I have one little brother and one little sister. The sister is chasing her calling in theatre in Halifax, while my brother headed north.

My little brother is hiding up in the great white north. He is living in Yellowknife, North West Territories and working in one of the remote mines. As I have never been to Yellowknife, I will post a couple pictures of the town for your enjoyment. The thriving downtown of yellowknife is first shown. Second, a large house that is an example of what Yellowknife's rich people live in. Lastly, part of the Giant Mine's infrastructure is shown overlooking Great Slave Lake.

Small Triumph

As I gaze over my virtual desk top, organizing things into something resembling order, I glance over at my list. I am done!! I have been drowning in paperwork due to my own laziness for the last three days. But I am now officially caught up. However, my ecological footprint has doubled in size due to my paper and electron output. Ah, the cost of business.

Northern Ontario

There are some differences between Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario (I use caps, as Northern Ontario will be its own province someday :)). Today, I will explain one or two of them.

There are the obvious linguistic differences. The obvious differences are sledding/sliding, cottage/camp and snowmobile/snow machine. And I tend to use the southern versions of these words, due to the fact that I spent a large part of my childhood in residual (north western Toronto). But quite apart from the vocabulary, northerners are less guarded in the speech. Where as city born southerners are generally hipper yet closed, while the rural southerners tend to consider their speech carefully. I have no idea why this is, but it is true. As someone who went to university in the south, I was told that I had a Northern Ontario accent. When I came home for Christmas, I had apparently developed a Southern Ontario accent.

Furthermore, there is a cultural wave washing up from the south. Of the shows are set in Ontario, how many of them are set in Northern Ontario? The same applies, though to a lesser extent, to print media and music. If one wants to find media from Northern Ontario, one really has to look. Though this may be largely due to the comparative populations of Northern and Southern Ontario, it still does piss people off.

However, these minor linguistic and cultural differences are not the major things that separate north from south. The major difference between Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario is the same as the difference between Canada and the United States. Now, I will not go off on a rant about the U.S. (but I could), but in general Canadians feel ignored and slighted by the Uncle Sam. There is a feeling of being looked down upon and an assumption that we will toe their line. The only time we seem to get noticed (either Canada, or Northern Ontario) is when we stand up and refuse to agree with what the larger community is saying. So we get ignored even more, and slapped with the whiner label.

And that is unfortunate. Because that means that neither community is listening.

Heat.

Man, today was hot. Like, up in the 25 degree range. Man, if it was not for the wind blowing over the wide open spaces on site, this would be truly unbearible. That, and my sweet air conditioned rented truck. And the air conditioned trailer. I pity the poor folks sweating it out in tropical Sudbury, or (god forbid) Toronto. Sometimes, spending time in the cool north is good.

Have fun...

More Stories?

Let me know if you would like me to post some more stories.

Thanks.

The Mountain With a Cave

Once upon a time, there was a Mountain. It was a lonely Mountain, jutting up out of a rolling plain. The peak was blue and marbled, with a brilliant white snowcap. No one had ever seen the top of the Mountain, as a gray cloud mat covered the peak for miles around. The Mountain could see all around herself, but all that was visible was the gleaming white tops of the clouds.

Then, the weather shifted. The rains came and tickled the feet of the Mountain. The snowcap receded and revealed a Cave, high above the clouds. This was a frightened Cave, and had made the weather cold so that the ice and snow would cover her. She was afraid of the world. But, still the Cave was curious. And so the weather warmed and the rains came. And all the Cave could see was the tops of the white fluffy clouds.

So, the Cave took a big breath and drew some of the clouds inside of her self. Suddenly, the world of white turned green as the fields and forests became visible. The flowers and animals were visible as bright spots of colour against the green background. As the Mountain looked around in horror, her entire world had shifted from one of endless white to a cacophony of colour pasted on a green background.

Fear shook the Mountain. The Cave got frightened. The weather got colder and the clouds rolled back. Once again, the snow and ice covered the Cave. Once the clouds had resumed their white hiding of the world below, the Mountain calmed herself. And the Mountain’s world became calm and serene again.

After some time had passed, the Mountain wanted to see the green and the flowers again. She tried to coax the Cave into action, but the Cave was scared. The Mountain’s reaction to the last time she saw the clouds had frightened the Cave very badly. The Cave did not want to inspire such fear. Gently, the Mountain coaxed the Cave to show the fields again. And the weather got warmer.

Soon, the Mountain gazed at the fields and forests in wonder. The vivid reds, yellows and blues of the flowers sharply contrasted with the lush greens of the grass and trees. The Cave was happy to bring such joy, though the clouds were not completely gone. And the Mountain reveled in the new details and colours.

And the Cave’s only regret was that she could not remove all the clouds.

Hey, Dawg.

I have not mentioned that I have acquired a new dawg. He is a red boarder collie and matches the current black boarder collie. Sadly, as I have been isolated up in the far north, I missed Loki coming home. And I also missed Merlin's (the first dawg of mine) reaction to Loki, which has, apparently, been very cute. The picture with this post has my lady, and both dawgs. Enjoy.

Two Evils

I am feeling a lot of anger today. Work is being super stressful, in spite of the beautiful weather that I am experiencing. I am currently thinking homicidal thoughts about two very specific people. One person deserves it and the other does not.

To begin, I will discuss the lesser of my two evils. The clients representative and site manager is a low tech, stamp collecting, long-winded story telling, lonely old man. Ordinarily, I could handle a person such as this. My patience with people is generally not too bad (while my patience with things… I will leave for another blog), but after dealing with this man for two months, my patience is nearing its limit. The computer the client gave him is slow and unwieldy. However, his lack of understanding of some basic computer functions makes it very difficult for me to work with him. If I send him an email with more than one attachment, he gets upset. This is because he cannot then forward the one important attachment from my email to his boss. The only way that he can forward attachments to other people is by forwarding the entire email. I did somewhat lose my temper with him today regarding that. I suggested that perhaps he should take a basic computer course. It might make his life easier. His response was “That’s not my job.” Yet, nowhere in my job description does it say Information Technologist. Still, I have difficulty condemning a person whose only crime is ignorance. Even if the ignorance is somewhat willful.

The greater evil is someone who did something very bad to my lady, when my lady was only a little girl. My lady has begun to remember these bad things slowly over the last three years or so. When she first told me she knew who it was who had done this to her, my reaction was immediate and visceral. My lady’s sister was there when the angry side of me envisioned, with crystal clarity, a wooden baseball bat with a railway spike driven through it. This was to be my weapon of vengeance. I have since gone through many other implements of destruction whenever the stress becomes too much for me to deal with. From axes, to picks, to an imitation katana of my brother’s, all have been tools in my mind to bring home the message that children should not be touched that way. I do not think I could ever plan to do anything to this man. However, if I ever meet him again, I do not know what I would do. I would hope I could keep my temper, but I do not know if I could. My current, slightly more rational, revenge fantasy, is to go into his workplace and ask, loudly, how he could do this to her. And then refuse to leave until the authorities were called. Again, I will not do this, but it is a thought that rolls into my head from time to time.

Unfortunately, stress causes anger in me. A t-shirt at a truck stop explained stress to be very well one time:

“Stress is the body’s confusion when the mind will not beat the shit out of someone who really deserves it.”

So, now I practice just letting everything go. It does not always work, but is works sometimes. I will find my peace, with my lady, in the lakes and the stars.

Executive Recruiting

I received a call from an executive recruiter. Apparently, engineers in northern Ontario are becoming sparse. (cue dramatic music) "Soon, I will receive more money. Mwahahaha." I just seems strange that anyone would be chasing me.

Separation Anxiety

I left my love behind yesterday. Do not get me wrong. I am not leaving her. I am again living in the rustic splendor of a small mining town. And I again left my woman behind. She is a good woman, strong (though she feels week), beautiful (though she feels large and ugly) and sensual (though she hides from her senses).

For you, my lady;

Though the greasy black pavement may separate us,
The blue sky and twinkling stars that you see
Are the same ones I gaze at.

I miss you...